


And think many things of it

by towardsmorning



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: 5 times format, Anxiety, Canon Character of Color, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yeah, that's what I've been doing lately. Thinking."</p><p>Five times Night Vale gave Carlos reason to be introspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And think many things of it

**Author's Note:**

> This was largely me attempting to a) nail down how I write Carlos better than the last attempt and b) more thoroughly nail down how I saw Cecil/Carlos happening. I took the line in the summary, thought 'well, what about five things Carlos thought about', and ran with that lovely, vague format.

1)  
  
A few days after the last member of the team Carlos came with has left Night Vale for good, he tidies his flat, makes himself a cup of coffee, sits down at the tiny table in his so far sparse, somewhat unlived in kitchen and thinks.  
  
Thing is, the sensible topic to be considering is whether Carlos wants to stay in this town alone or not- it's the _only_ sensible topic for him to be thinking about at this juncture, really. The problem is that Carlos already knows he does. It's a rash impulse, an ill thought out decision, both things he tries and often fails to avoid engaging in, but it's not really up for debate that he does very much want to stay. In the abstract Carlos supposes that it doesn't make any sense to want this and he's sure that any attempt at creating a pros-and-cons list would leave him drowning in reasons to get out as quickly as possibe. So he doesn't make one, and instead Carlos takes wanting to stay as a given and moves on from there. He's adept at directing his thoughts away from things that worry him.  
  
The topic he ends up instead thinking about as he drains his cooling coffee is, therefore, instead what staying will actually mean. He forces himself to think about all the things he's put off for as long as possible: about how long he'll be out here and about how he's going to tell his mother, about how this means that yes, he does have to finally finish the absolute last of his unpacking, about a million tiny details that he's put off under the guise of not knowing whether he's going to be staying or going. It's more a weight on his shoulders than anything, but even so, actually making that decision is its own kind of relief. Having it all ordered in his mind makes him feel at least a little better.  
  
As he drains the mug, he can feel a little of the tension that's been present since he watched the final car drive off drain out of his body, and he smiles.  
  
2)  
  
Carlos has a bad day.  
  
Of course, Carlos has quite a lot of bad days all in all, and it's not as though this is a new thing, no matter how tempting it is to retroactively claim that it's all Night Vale's fault. All that's really changed is that now when he has bad days they're usually more exciting. It used to just mean a thousand ton weight on his chest when waking up in the morning or sharp spikes of tension when the phone rang and he wasn't expecting it, panicking if he was unexpectedly pulled over while driving or he thought he couldn't make rent. Now there's usually also things like the sky flashing strange colours and the road spontaneously splitting apart to mix things up.  
  
At any rate, Carlos has a bad day; he makes it home at around ten that night and lets himself into his dusty, dark apartment, tired, aching, trying to ignore the tight knot in his chest and the muscle that's twitching in his cheek in the hopes that it'll encourage them to go away. His mind retaliates by running a condensed, vivid highlight reel of the last sixteen hours or so, reminding him of that terrifying and so-far unsolved noise that seemed to emanate from every part of his lab simultaneously, of the way that every time he'd turned around everything outside his line of sight had been moved just a fraction to the left or right, of the fact that he'd ended up smashing a mirror out of sheer nervousness when he thought he saw a shadow in it and then felt like a complete fool. Not least of all because if there's anywhere you'll get bad luck for smashing a mirror it's probably Night Vale. He swears his reflection has looked a little more reproachful than he feels ever since.  
  
Even though Carlos knows better all it does is make it easier to want to blame Night Vale. It's tempting to just say _screw this place_ and start packing on nights like these, to leave and find somewhere that doesn't make him want to lock his door and never leave. The thought sits at the edge of his mind under the layers of white noise that he's so used to that he barely registers the feeling as panic anymore, a thought which insists that this is the only good idea avaliable and that he's known this for some time. It's a dishonest thought, because for a start that white noise long predates Night Vale, but it's there and right now it feels like the only one he has left that makes any sense.  
  
Suddenly Carlos regrets never writing out that pros-and-cons list. Or, rather, he regrets at least not writing out the 'pros' side. Instead he tries to run through one mentally, louder than the loop of terrible decisions. He thinks about the angels and how he'd never forgive himself if he left Night Vale without getting at least one concrete answer out of someone about their existence. Then he thinks about how kind Josie has been these last few months, helping him find his feet without ever stooping to pity, about how things like that make him feel more welcome here than he really ever did back out there in the 'real world'. After a moment he thinks about how beautiful the sky looked last night as he walked back from her house. His hand slips into his pocket to curl around his phone and Carlos abruptly thinks _oh, yes, Cecil_. That whole terrifying, exhilerating mess leaves him swallowing and flushed and wanting to shake a little and, in fact, finally manages to bring his mind to a dead stop, albeit mostly so he can focus on an entirely different set of uncontrollable thoughts.  
  
 _Terrifying, exhilerating mess_ ; it's a good lens, Carlos thinks, to view Night Vale through as a whole. Put like that he feels enough kinship with this place to sit down in his dim apartment and take his shoes off, the urge to run conquered.  
  
  
3)  
  
Talking to Cecil typically proves to be something which requires all of Carlos' attention. Conversely, the more attention he pays to his conversations with Cecil the more concerning they tend to be, so for all that he enjoys it Carlos does tend to find himself on-edge sometimes, even moreso than he normally does in social situations.  
  
Right now 'concern' is actually a little bit of an overstatement. Mostly the topic he's fixating on is that Night Vale seems to have absolutely no concept of a rigorous education and, in fact, must be actively devoting itself to the exact opposite- not nearly as bad as some of the stuff that comes up when he runs into Cecil and manages to start a conversation without entirely tripping over himself, but aggravating anyway. Cecil is asking him about space, and 'the void', and the moon. Carols is mostly attempting the keep the expression of horror-slash-confusion off his face, having had enough experience being on the recieving end of that sort of thing that he's aware of how much of a dick it would make him. Even if Cecil is attempting to tell him about the inherent malevolence that is contained within the gaps between stars or... something.  
  
It helps not to look at Cecil's face so Carlos watches his hands instead, the way his right one is gesticulating freely and precisely, the way his left flexes on the top of Cecil's deep purple cane like it kind of wants to join the other. It's oddly soothing.  
  
"Cecil," he says at what he hopes is an appropriate pause, looking up. Cecil just talks so much, and Carlos really doesn't. "I, uh. I don't think..." Carlos trails off, looking frantically for the right words. Meanwhile Cecil waits patiently, his dark eyes focused unerringly on Carlos, which doesn't help. It's uncanny, not only being watched so closely but also the fact that Carlos is aware by this point that Cecil really is going to take in absolutely everything he says with the force of all that intensity. Much like the rest of Night Vale, it isn't really _bad_ uncanny.  
  
The pause stretches on as he wrenches his thoughts away from that and Carlos still can't find what it is he wants to say, no idea what he _can_ say to someone like Cecil without being insulting, or condescending, or both, things that again, he's been on the recieving end of too many times in his life to want to push onto Cecil. In the end he changes tactics entirely.  
  
"Do you want to, I mean, talk about this?" He winces, then tries again. "In depth, or something, I mean, not like- this." Carlos takes a deep breath and tries one more time. "It'd help me to know how this sort of thing, uh, works here. I guess." It's not untrue. Most of what comes out of Cecil's mouth makes his brain turn over, yes, but at the same time the stars have been inexplicably present in the sky since around noon in full daylight and Carlos is therefore trying really hard not to jump to any rash conclusions about the topic.  
  
Cecil smiles broadly at the suggestion. Cecil usually smiles broadly, at pretty much any opportunity, but for no real reason this is the time it ends up making Carlos think, suddenly- _oh._  
  
4)  
  
After their first date, Carlos manages to not run through every single blunder and too-long pause and cringe. This is a new experience for him. He does still manage to work his way through quite a lot of them, but his internal groaning ends up being tempered by things like remembering how Cecil had taken his hand halfway through their walk and how firm his grip had been, or how he'd worn his hair up for the first time that Carlos had seen and how it had suited him so well that it had almost been enough to distract from those furry pants- and for that matter, how much Carlos had smiled to see Cecil in an outfit so entirely himself.  
  
His mother had clumsily prodded him into promising to inform her if he 'met anyone nice out there in the middle of nowhere'. It occurs to Carlos that he's going to have to work out how to have that conversation, which makes him less nervous than he'd expected it would.  
  
5)  
  
It's the date of their three month anniversary, Carlos thinks as he makes his first cup of coffee that morning. It feels ridiculous to notice, the sort of thing he's pretty sure only teenagers care about, but Carlos is good with dates and bad enough at relationships that it's notable.  
  
There have been a lot of milestones _within_ those three months, Carlos knows, like their first date, or their first fight, or the first time Cecil stayed over. Other more personal things as well, like the first time they decided to just stay in for the night and drank slightly too much wine and overshared a little more than they intended. Or when Carlos had asked Cecil to get the phone while he was busy cooking and Cecil had ended up being introduced to and conversing with Carlos' youngest sister for a while as Carlos shouted objections in the background.  
  
He looks around at his quiet kitchen. There's two pictures of him and Cecil on one of his cheap counters in equally cheap frames, only slightly warped and strange- as photos tend to be in Night Vale, so that's not (very) concerning. Cecil's favourite mug is in the sink waiting to be washed, because he always insists on bringing it round when he knows he'll be staying the night. The chairs at his tiny folding table are mismatched because he'd ended up having to buy a second one; he always thinks of that one as _Cecil's_.  
  
Carlos finishes making his coffee and leaves it to cool while he washes the mug up, leaning against the sink and looking around at all these things as he dries it. He and Cecil have reached that tenuous, slightly awkward phase where they're certainly not living together but they're also not quite living apart, and neither is sure quite how much they're allowed to enroach on the other's life yet. For Carlos' part, he's quite happy to let Cecil invade. Both of them live in frankly tiny flats but he's happy to hand some of that small space over to Cecil, even if the other man does have a slightly irritating tendency to somehow mess up rooms just by enterting them. (He claims to find Carlos' tendency to actually tidy up unnatural and seems dedicated to undoing it at least a little, which is both endearing and irritating by turns.)  
  
A soft noise from the door draws his attention and Carlos looks up from his absent minded drying. Cecil has finally managed to drag himself into the land of the living, it seems, and he's yawning hugely in his ridiculous oversized NVCR t shirt. Carlos stifles a laugh at the image that comes to mind: he looks a little like a disgruntled cat that doesn't quite know where he is but definitely knows he doesn't like it. Cecil's long hair is tangled and when he finally staggers through his yawn he squints vaguely at Carlos, who goes to pour him a cup of coffee out of sympathy.  
  
"Thanks," Cecil mumbles, collapsing onto his chair and shoving his face into it eagerly.  
  
It's been, Carlos thinks as he joins Cecil, sat across from him in the late morning sun, a really _good_ three months.

**Author's Note:**

> The brief allusion to his original team all leaving is a reference to my previous WTNV fic. (I'm sticking to the story they've been sending him replacements.)
> 
> The title is, of course, a quote from the show itself- episode fiften, Street Cleaning Day.


End file.
